


GOODNIGHT FROM YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND

by GallaPlacidia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety, Epistolary, Harry and Blaise are best friends, Letters, M/M, Some angst, anxiety about organ donation, existential dread re: climate change, mention of suicide, no I didn't expect that tag to come up either but there you have it, some suicidal ideation but not to do with depression?, the Slytherins are casual drug-users, toxic friendship (not drarry)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:46:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27046696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallaPlacidia/pseuds/GallaPlacidia
Summary: Draco accidentally sends Harry a drunken letter proposing marriage. Harry responds.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Pansy Parkinson/Blaise Zabini
Comments: 364
Kudos: 2517





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FeelsForBreakfast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsForBreakfast/gifts).



> Some time ago, I wrote Draco's letter after a conversation with Feelsforbreakfast. I think, honestly, I was hoping they'd just... finish it for me but they didn't so FINE I GUESS I WILL. This fic is a ridiculous gift for them!
> 
> Join my newsletter at newsletter.gallapod.com !

_Potter,_

_I’m going to need you to be as perfect and hero-ish as ever you’ve been for the duration of this letter. Bravely read to the end. Pretend it’s a fucking basilisk or something, I don’t know, whatever it is you do to muster up courage; I wouldn’t know **LOL**. You see… _

_I’ve decided we should date. Well, marry, actually, because I’m ultimately traditional. Not right away, obviously. I’m not crazy! We’ll date for a respectable 2-4 years before getting hitched. I’m not proposing, incidentally. That’ll be on you._

_How did I come to this conclusion, you ask? Let me walk you through it._

_The catalyst for this letter was a certain tabloid feature that caught my eye this morning as I was deciding whether or not to buy a packet of cigarettes. (I’ll quit if you ask me to. I’m always looking for reasons to quit.) “Chosen One Comes Out of the Cupboard”, read the lurid headline. So, reason 1 for us to be together:_

_1\. I am also gay!_

_I can already hear you saying that just because we’re both gay doesn’t mean we should date. I will direct your attention to point number 2._

_2\. We’re both hot!_

_Don’t argue with me on this one. I know you think I’m handsome. You got drunk at a ministry gala in 1999 and told Blaise Zabini all about it. I’ll concede that for a long time, you weren’t hot, but I’m willing to overlook that, given how well you’ve grown into your nose. _

_3\. Opposites attract!_

_You’re all, dark and brooding. I’m all, light and goodness. Ha ha. Can we joke about the war, now that we’re in love?_

_4\. I’d be good for you!_

_Ever notice how your selflessness gets you into scrapes? Sacrificing your life for the wizarding world at the tender age of seventeen springs to mind. Darling, you need someone seriously selfish to draw you back to the centre of the spectrum of morality. We have compatible flaws. Your kindness and generosity will rub off on me, which Pansy Parkinson claims would benefit my character (lies) and my ruthless ambition and self-prioritisation would rub off on you, hopefully making you less likely to go around putting your head on chopping blocks whenever anyone asks you to._

_5\. You want a family!_

_So do I! My whole family’s dead, or good as (mother’s still in St Mungo’s, she doesn’t recognise me, let’s never talk about it ever again thx love u). You’re king of the orphans. Let’s be lost boys together! Give each other what we need! Love, stability, permanence! I’m in if you are, baby!_

_6\. We’re horribly sexually attracted to each other!_

_No? Just me?_

_7\. I’ve loved you half my life and had a little panic at the realisation that you’re gay and drank about a litre of rum and also did I mention I’m in love with you?_

_Probably time for me to go to bed. This was cathartic. I’m now imagining your face if I were to actually send this which is HILARIOUS._

_GOODNIGHT FROM YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND,_

_Draco Malfoy_

  
Harry stared at the letter. He put it down on his dining room table, reheated a frozen curry he had made the week before, ate the curry while listening to a radio program about bat sonar, and then looked at the letter again.

“What the _actual_ fuck,” he said. 

  
Blaise Zabini opened the door almost immediately. When Harry first moved into his new flat, the fact that Blaise Zabini lived across the hall had been disorienting, horrible, and wholly unfair. Harry suspected the real estate agent had _hidden_ it from him.

“What nonsense,” Blaise said three years later, when Harry mentioned this theory to him. “You do realise I've been voted Witch Weekly's most eligible bachelor twice now? I’m the reason your flat cost so much. I make this building _fashionable_.”

By that time, Harry knew Blaise well enough to know just how true this was. Every item of clothing Blaise wore sold out the moment he was photographed in it. 

“Harry!” he said now. “Out and proud! Penny did a good job, didn't she?”

“Yeah, great, perfect,” said Harry, barging past him. He went into Blaise’s kitchen and opened the fridge to cool his face. Blaise had masterminded Harry’s coming out to the public. They had been planning it for months, and it had gone about as well it have done. Penny Clearwater’s article was largely inoffensive, and Harry had been fielding congratulatory owls all day. Romilda Vane had sent him a barbershop quartet, which Harry thought was probably a ham-fisted attempt at pretending she had been very much okay with not sleeping with him all along. 

“I thought Pen did a splendid job,” said Blaise, following Harry into the kitchen and putting on the kettle. “Anyway, it was an open secret, wasn’t it? Are you freaking out? You’re freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“Oh, good,” said Blaise, “because honestly, darling, I haven’t the energy.”

“How’s Malfoy doing, these days?” asked Harry. The fridge wasn’t cold enough. He closed it and stuck his head in the freezer. 

“Malfoy? Malfoy who?”

“Blaise.”

“Trying to think—” said Blaise, and usually it made Harry laugh when he did that, when he pretended he’d never heard of any of the Slytherins, even Snape and Slughorn and Voldemort. But today it only made Harry sad. He knew Blaise still saw them all, the Slytherins. Knew, in fact, that Draco Malfoy was Blaise’s closest friend. Even if Blaise never invited him over, and pretended he had dropped him after Hogwarts. Harry knew that Blaise sneaked out late at night to go see Malfoy. He met up with him in cheap restaurants where no one would notice. When Harry was upset, he often turned to Blaise. But when Blaise was upset, he turned to Malfoy. 

“I know you talk to him,” said Harry.

“Who? Malfoy? Which one?”

“You told him I found him attractive,” said Harry. “In 1999, at a ministry gala.”

“Well, this Malfoy you're referring to can't have been at a ministry gala in 1999. The only Malfoys I’m aware of are hospitalised, dead, or disgraced. You’ll admit, I’m sure, that none of those states are conducive to receiving invitations to political functions.”

“He wasn’t at— _I_ was at—oh, fuck it,” said Harry. He handed Blaise Malfoy’s letter. Blaise’s eyebrows travelled further and further up his forehead as he read.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Blaise.

Harry gaped at him.

“You _have_ to know what to say. I’ve been—I don't think I’ve had a single thought since I first read it, an hour ago. I think my head froze,” he said.

“That’ll be the freezer.”

Harry shut the freezer door and knocked his head against it.

“ _Why_ do _bizarre_ , fucked-up things always happen to _me?”_ he asked, punctuating his lament with head bashes. 

“Darling, you surely can’t count this blip of a letter as bizarre or fucked up. It’s quite transparently a prank.”

“A prank," said Harry. The idea hadn’t occurred to him. No idea had occurred to him, in fact, since he’d read the words “I’ve decided we should date” in Malfoy’s handwriting. 

Somehow, the idea of it being a prank was not comforting.

“Obviously,” said Blaise. “Here, I’ll burn it, and we’ll forget it ever happened."

“No!” said Harry, grabbing the letter back. “No, I mean—if Malfoy’s up to something—”

Blaise looked alarmed.

“Up to something? Up to _what?”_

“Nothing,” said Harry, sinking to the floor and hiking his knees up to his chest. “Can you put milk in the tea.”

Blaise milked the tea, handed the mug to Harry, then sank slinkily down to sit beside him.

“Look…” he said, his voice disturbingly serious. “I… you can’t tell anyone, all right?”

“About the prank?”

“No, that…” Blaise took an unhappy sip of tea. “Sometimes I see Malfoy, all right?”

Harry was genuinely curious.

“Did you, er, think I didn’t know that?”

“You _knew?”_

And here, of course, was the awkward part. The reason Harry knew where Blaise went when he disappeared. It had to do with the invisibility cloak, Harry’s post-war paranoia, and the extremely intense crush he’d had on Blaise in the first ten months after they became friends. 

Blaise, incidentally, was straight. This he had managed to get across to Harry, in his typically Blaisish way, by dropping subtle-and-then-not-subtle-at-all hints about his heterosexuality. It had culminated in Harry leaning in for a kiss, and Blaise springing to his feet, saying, 

“Isn’t it terrible how a man can’t be camp any more? Just good, old-fashioned, I-only-shag-women _camp_ , you know what I mean? Oh, actually, I think I’m supposed to be somewhere right now. With a girl. A very pretty girl I fancy. See you around, then, Harry!”

If it hadn’t been Blaise, it probably would have been fatally humiliating. Even with it being Blaise, Harry still considered a) devoting the rest of his life to time travel studies so that he could make that moment _not happen_ , or b) buying the entire block of flats, evicting everyone, and burning the building to the ground, or c) pretending he had been kidnapped and his assaulter had polyjuiced into him and tried to kiss Blaise Zabini without Harry knowing or approving in any way. 

But it was Blaise, who never mentioned it again, never acted as if anything had changed, and continued his policy of throwing six parties a week and inviting Harry to all of them. They spent a lot of hungover mornings together. Harry slept with a couple of men he’d met through Blaise, slowly realised all the ways in which Blaise was not right for him, and settled into a comfortable friendship—the most satisfying of his adult life, in many ways.

Blaise was looking at him expectantly. Harry didn’t know how to say “when I was nineteen I fancied you a lot and was paranoid that someone would kill you so I would follow you around to make sure you were safe” without Blaise laughing at him. He wouldn’t be angry, Harry didn't think—Blaise was never angry. But he would laugh at him, and Harry wasn't in the mood. 

“I’m an auror,” Harry said. “I know things.”

Blaise had the reverent respect for “real jobs” of the perennially unemployed. He nodded.

“Right, yeah,” he said. “Of course. Well, the fact is, Draco and I are—we speak occasionally. So…”

Blaise looked uncharacteristically lost for words. 

“So?” asked Harry.

“If you go around saying he’s up to something, you could massively fuck up his life," said Blaise. “And he's _not_ up to anything. I know he’s a piece of shit, or whatever, but I don’t think—”

“Well, he can’t be a piece of shit, if he's your friend.” 

Blaise frowned.

“I didn't say he was my friend.”

“Whatever," said Harry. “Fine. He’s not up to anything. What _is_ he up to? What does he do, even?”

But Blaise had closed off.

“Oh, I don’t know. I barely see him. D’you fancy a game of air hockey?”

Harry thought about challenging Blaise— _you see him all the time, you text him, you talk to him on the phone_ —but he fancied a game of air hockey more. They went back to Harry’s flat (air hockey table was not really Blaise’s aesthetic) and played three games and Harry won two of them. 

“Maybe I should prank him back,” said Harry, panting against the table. He and Blaise played air hockey _hard_. 

“Prank who?”

“Malfoy,” said Harry.

“Malfoy? Malfoy who?” said Blaise, and Harry gave up.

  
But much later that night, he thought about it. That audacious fucking letter! The nerve of it! Harry hadn’t seen Draco in years. Not since he used to follow Blaise around, and see Malfoy dipping into rickety old pubs, eyes darting to check no one had spotted him. He and Blaise would hug, then sink instantly into conversation. Harry never overheard it, but he knew Blaise well by then. He could see how Blaise’s various charms would fall away in Malfoy’s presence, how he became earnest and grateful. Malfoy, too, looked different from how he had been at school. Happier. Gentler. 

But Malfoy didn't know that Harry had been a crazed stalker, so from his point of view, Harry hadn’t seen him since the summer after the war. They had run into each other a few times then, at funerals, or trials, and once at Luna’s house. 

“Are you _friends_ with him?” Ron had asked Luna incredulously.

“He just wanted to talk,” Luna had said. 

Malfoy had apologised to all of them, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of way.

“I’ve been meaning to say,” he said, at Dolohov’s trial—Draco had been cleared by then, but he went to every Death Eater trial. Ron said he wanted to find out what would happen to his buddies. “I’ve been meaning to catch you and tell you—but you’ve been flocked with reporters, of course.”

“Tell me what?” asked Harry.

“You’d think they’d tire of printing nothing but your face, nonstop, on every single magazine, wouldn't you? _I’m_ tired of it.”

“Tell me what, Malfoy?”

“That I’m sorry. They ought to feature Granger once in a while, really. We all know she did the heavy lifting. And frankly, she’s got a better photo-face. I’m not saying she's more _photogenic_ , only that she doesn't look as if she’s about to pulverise the photographer in every snapshot. Oh, look, here come some more reporters. Try not to seem so furious.”

And he’d disappeared. That was all the apology Harry got, and when Ron and Hermione told him about their apologies, they sounded much the same: rambling, distracted, awkward. 

So for Malfoy to try to prank him was out of order, really, and Harry was well within his rights to prank him back. 

It did not take long for Harry to convince himself of this. It was the middle of the night, but he got a quill and parchment.

  
_Malfoy,_

_Surely you can't expect me to marry you in 2-4 years if we don’t know each other. To that end, please respond to the following questions by return owl._

_1\. What is your favourite sex position?_   
_2\. What is your most embarrassing memory?_   
_3\. What do you like lovers to call you during sex?_

_Looking forward to our long and prosperous marriage,_

_Harry Potter_

He sent it before he could question what on earth he was doing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I know I said this was silly but then I accidentally gave Draco a bit of an anxiety disorder so, uh, sorry about that

  
The moment Draco recognised Potter's handwriting, he gave a gurgled scream. 

_“Fledgeling!”_ he cried, “oh, _motherfucker_ , oh, that _cunting_ owl—”

Through the thin walls came Goyle’s voice.

“Leave her alone!”

Draco stormed into Goyle’s room, reading Potter’s letter as he went. 

“Your inexcusably overzealous owl has _destroyed my life_ ,” he said. “Christ, put on some clothes, Goyle, I can’t handle feeling insecure this early in the morning.”

Goyle had coped with grief by becoming ripped, and consequently was always naked. “He does it to make the rest of us feel bad,” Pansy said, and Draco agreed. 

“Fledgeling’s just doing her job,” said Goyle, pulling boxers over his muscular thighs. Draco eyed them unhappily. It was disorienting to know that _Goyle_ was probably attractive to people.

“Her _job_ is not to sneak into my bedroom while I’m passed out and deliver letters I had no intention of sending,” said Draco.

“Oh, Fledge,” said Goyle, and the monstrous owl in question hopped into his arms. She was huge, stupid, and very eager to please. Everyone in the house hated her, except for Goyle, who demonstrated a hitherto unsuspected paternal streak in his dealings with her. “You naughty girl. You sent another one of Draco’s rage-letters.”

The last one had been to Blaise. They hadn’t spoken for a month afterwards. It was Blaise who had cracked, of course, because Blaise was the lonelier one out of the two of them. He had shown up at the flat, miserable and sharp, and said “I still think you’re a bell-end.”

“So are you, fuck off,” said Draco. 

“I need you, Draco.”

And Draco should have told him to leave, should have repeated the sentiments in the rage-letter— _you make me feel like shit, this is the most toxic friendship I’ve ever been in and I was briefly pals with the Dark Lord, do you have any idea how lowering it is to know that your closest friend is ashamed of you_ —but Blaise kept swallowing, as if he were trying not to cry. And Draco knew that he had treated Cra—that he had treated his friends badly for years, and they had taken him back each time, and it was probably right that he should pay it forward. 

“You're still going to pretend you don’t know me,” he said. 

“I don't have a _choice_ ,” said Blaise.

“Oh, bollocks,” said Draco. 

“If you hadn’t fucking joined a hate group—”

“Jesus…! Fine, come inside.” 

Blaise hurried in, his shoulders loosening, his expression lightening. 

“Look, you know I wish—” said Blaise.

“Forget it,” said Draco. “I missed you too. You look like shit, by the way.”

“Oh thanks, mate, that’s just what I like to hear.”

They hadn't talked about the letter. About how every line had rung with truth, had been laced with pain and indignation and bewilderment. They hadn’t talked about it, and nothing had changed. Blaise met up with Draco in secret, as if Draco was his mistress, and Draco let it go—mostly. He loved Goyle, but Goyle was an idiot. He loved Pansy, but Pansy was for _sure_ a high-functioning psychopath. Blaise was—he was everything. He was Draco’s sounding-board, his moral compass, his comfort. His friend. The only person who Draco trusted to give him the advice he needed. If he had just listened to Blaise in fifth year, how different might his life had been! 

It was because Draco hadn't listened when Blaise told him to stay away from the Death Eaters that they were in their current predicament. Whenever Draco reproached Blaise for treating him so badly, Blaise had only to remind Draco of what he had done to deserve that ill-treatment, and Draco backed down, speechless, defenceless.

“Yes,” Draco told Goyle, now. Goyle was stroking Fledgeling’s head and cooing. “She sent a letter to _Potter_ , of all people.”

Goyle frowned.

“Why would you write a rage-letter to Potter? You’re in love with him.”

“I’m not in love with…!”

“Pansy says you’re in love with him,” said Goyle. 

“If you don’t start keeping that confounded owl in a cage at night, I swear to God I will be serving you _owl soup_ for dinner.”

Goyle looked disappointed in him. This was another new Goyle development, his ability to stand up to Draco. Draco hated it, just as he hated the muscles, and the owl. 

“What’s that you’re holding?” asked Goyle. 

“Potter _wrote back_ ,” said Draco. 

“What does he say?”

“He—” Draco paused. “He—I can’t make sense of it, to be honest.”

He read the letter aloud. (He didn’t have three hours to hang about while Goyle read it for himself.)

“Wow! He likes you!” said Goyle.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“He wants to know your favourite sex position,” said Goyle.

“Yes, that is surprise,” said Draco, studying the letter. “I don’t—”

“Only you're a virgin,” said Goyle.

“Thank you, Goyle, it's so helpful to be reminded of these things.” Draco chewed the inside of his cheek. “What's a good sex position? Backwards… dog…girl? Is that one?”

“It’s probably better if you tell the truth," said Goyle. 

“You think I should answer?”

“He says he can't marry you unless you do,” said Goyle, stretching his atrociously fit body across the bed. 

“He’s not serious about that, Goyle.”

“Maybe he just wants to get to know you.”

“Out of the mouths of babes," said Draco, faintly. Because the moment Goyle said it, the letter made sense. Maybe Potter _was_ attracted to him. Maybe he _did_ want to get to know Draco. 

“Don't call me a babe,” said Goyle, looking wounded. “You know I don't like being sexualised.”

“Goyle. I say this in the spirit of honesty and openness. You are _sex itself.”_

Goyle made a mournful expression.

“Yeah,” he said. “That's what Pansy said, too.”

  
_Potter,_

_An eminently reasonable request. Please pose any questions you wish._

_1\. What is my favourite sex position?_

_I was tempted to lie to you, in the hope that my verbal fluency with sex would suggest a promising physical prowess. Unfortunately, the fact is that I’ve never had sex, unless you count that time in fifth year with Pansy. But we were on shrooms, and she kept doing this… like… vagina voice, like, pretending her vagina was a hostess and offering my dick refreshments, and we were laughing so hard that we actually forgot we were having sex, and then we got hungry and went to go look for Goyle’s stash of chocolate muffins, and—anyway, I don't count it._

_It occurs to me that this tale may not inspire you with lust. Rest assured that I am a quick and enthusiastic learner. Also, I'm very flexible._

_2\. What is my most embarrassing memory?_

_Well, one time I told Harry Potter that I was half a virgin… haaa, no, I wish that was my most embarrassing memory._

_What is embarrassment, anyway? Is it something you remember with flinches and misery and wish you had never done? If so, then perhaps you can imagine my most embarrassing memories. Perhaps embarrassment is the wrong word. Perhaps the word I’m looking for is shame._

_3\. What do you like lovers to call you during sex?_

_I seem to recall Pansy referring to me as “Mr Penis”._

_Given that we’ve established my great sexual innocence, I’ll change your question. In the Easter term of second year, I tried to get everyone to call me “dragon”. I think I was hoping for some nominative pre-determinism to come into play, you know, like if I was called Dragon I'd grow up to be powerful and fearsome. As you can imagine, absolutely no one indulged me, ~~except for Cra~~_

_I think that answers all of your questions. I will pose three of my own, but I don’t expect you to answer them._

_1\. How do you like being an auror?_   
_2\. Come on. Is it really not fun being famous and beloved?_   
_3\. What made you decide to come out publicly?_

_Here for your procrastination purposes,_

_Draco Malfoy_

  
——————

Harry didn't answer the letter right away. He read it three times, then put in his desk and got on with his day. 

He gave in when he noticed he was composing his reply in his head at lunch.

_Malfoy,_

_I won’t hold your virginity against you, but I will insist on calling you Mr Penis in bed. It’s only polite._

_1\. How do I like being an auror?_

_I like helping people._

_2\. Is it fun being famous and beloved?_

_I cannot stress this enough: NO._

_3\. What made you decide to come out publicly?_

_Honestly, it was so that if I got a boyfriend, the press wouldn’t hound him too much. Also, they wouldn't leave Ginny and Neville alone, and kept calling Neville a home wrecker. It was getting pretty old. Everyone who mattered already knew, anyway._

_1\. What do you do for a living?_   
_2\. Are you still a blood purist?_   
_3\. What happened to your mum?_

_Three nosy questions from your inquisitive future spouse,_

_Harry Potter_

_Potter,_

_“Everyone who mattered already knew”—except me, of course. I’ll assume you meant to add that caveat. Potter, you’ve got to stop writing such long answers. I’ll wear out my eyes reading them. “I like helping people”—I’m exhausted just thinking about you putting pen to paper for four whole words! I hope you took a nap afterwards._

_I’m sorry the press hounded Ginny and Longbottom like that._

_1\. What do I do for a living?_

_I’m a data analyst for a muggle non-profit that focuses on assessing the efficacy of charitable organisations in the developing world. Basically: I crunch numbers and come to the dispiriting conclusion that colonialism is alive and well, and it’s masquerading as charity. It’s a hopeless sort of a job, rather the opposite of yours—I don't think I help anyone at all. But it’s... morally complex, and I like that._

_2\. Am I still a blood purist?_

_No._

_3\. What happened to my mum?_

_Make sure you don’t hold back, Potter. Shall we discuss that time I lied for you at the manor next? Maybe ease ourselves in with some light exploration of sectumsempra?_

_She tried to kill herself after my father died, and the spell went wrong. Grim! No fun! See, you ought to think of better questions, really raunchy ones. Muggles have this thing called sexting: one moment you’re just chatting to a nice man, and the next, BANG, dick pic. It kept happening to me and I couldn’t figure out why. Finally Pansy explained that I was using the winky face wrong. Seems I was propositioning people all over the place. Wait, why did I bring this up? Oh. Because I think sexting sounds more fun than talking about my mother. Do what you think is best, of course. Or tell me something about yourself._

_Draco_

———

Harry felt awful when he read Draco’s letter. He had picked questions that could conceivably be useful for a prank, but when he read Draco’s reply, he realised he didn’t have a prank in mind. He never had done. _I’ve loved you half my life,_ Draco had said. Harry’s mind kept rearranging the past, _I’ve loved you half my life_ , cruelty and sneers and posturing and attention—Draco had always lavished so much _attention_ on Harry. 

Not that Draco hadn’t been a bigoted prick. He had. But all the same, when Harry read Draco’s response to the third question—the frantic way he turned the subject away from his mother—Harry wished he had asked anything else. 

———

  
_Draco,_

_I’m really sorry about your mum. That sounds awful. I shouldn’t have asked._

_Something about myself... I live across the hall from Blaise Zabini, but you probably already know that. He’s maybe one of my closest friends? He’s brilliant. I’ll give you a secret to make up for asking a tactless question. I tried to kiss Blaise once—it was awful. He was appalled._

_I’m really sorry about your mum. She saved my life, you know._

_I enjoy your letters._

_Harry_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: there is some discussion of suicide in this chapter, not because Draco is suicidal, but because his anxiety leads him to believe that it may be the practical thing to do

  
Blaise turned up unannounced on Draco’s doorstep, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. Draco tamped down the urge to hit him. 

“Blaise! Good of you to patronise us with your gracious presence,” said Pansy, when they went into the sitting room. She and Blaise looked at each other a fraction too long, then Pansy turned proudly away.

“Mr Zabini! Mr Zabini! Will you autograph my shoe?” said Theo Nott. 

“Hi, guys,” said Blaise. Draco drew the curtains, and Blaise took off his cap and sunglasses. “Where’s Goyle?”

“Working out,” said Pansy. She hovered by the window, all black hair and snagged tights. Blaise seemed, for a moment, as if he wanted to go to her, then went purposefully to the sofa instead.

“Pizzas on me,” he said.

“Gee, thanks, mister!” said Theo. “You sure are good to us poor proles!”

“Your father’s a viscount, Theo. You hardly embody the proletariat. Leave Blaise alone,” said Draco, coming to sit next to Blaise. Blaise cast him a small, grateful look. It did not last long: his eyes were drawn back to Pansy, as if she were the centre of the room.

“How’ve you been, Pans?” he asked her. 

“Still working at Nando’s, Blaise,” said Pansy. Blaise wrinkled his nose. He didn’t like to come to Draco’s flat, when he could help it. He said it was because Theo was a dick to him, but Draco knew better. It was because Pansy was at Draco’s flat, beautiful and furious and everything that Blaise had chosen not to have.

Theo soon dragged Pansy away. They all knew there was no point in leaving Blaise and Pansy in the same room. Blaise stared after her, skin pulled tight over the fine bones of his face. 

“Did you get invited to the Battle of Hogwarts Memorial gala?” asked Draco to distract him, once they were alone. It was the most fashionable event of the season, and Blaise had never yet managed to score an invite. Draco knew how it bothered him. Blaise shook his head. 

“I’m sorry,” said Draco. 

“It’s just _shit_ ,” said Blaise. “It’s just so _shit_ , when I think about what things were like for my mother—”

However angry it made him, Draco did understand Blaise’s decision to cut him off. The Zabinis had been socialites, generation after generation, since the 18th century. Draco understood that sort of family pressure—not just the immediate sort, _my parents want me to do x_ , but centuries of obligation weighing down on you. The fear of being a weak link. Of breaking a chain. In his most clear-hearted moments, Draco didn’t blame Blaise at all. He tried to carry that sympathy and understanding with him when he saw Blaise in person. 

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s rubbish. They should have invited you.”

“I donated fifteen thousand galleons to the Post-War Committee. I wasn’t even fucking _in_ the war!”

“I suppose having the choice to sit it out was something of a privilege,” said Draco. “It’s not as if muggleborns could do that.”

“There are some muggles in my family,” said Blaise. “If you go far back enough.”

“Right, but—you weren’t at risk, is what I mean. So they’re probably trying to keep the gala for—I don’t know, for people who were negatively impacted by the war.”

“I was negatively impacted by the war!” said Blaise. “So were you, for that matter.”

“Look,” said Draco, “fuck the Post-War Committee. Have your own party.”

“That would be gauche.”

Draco curled small on the sofa.

“I know. I was joking.”

“We could call it the _‘I actually suffered quite a lot too, thanks’_ gala,” said Blaise.

“The _‘I couldn’t have a Sweet Sixteenth birthday party and it was actually really sad_ ’ gala.”

“The _‘No one in my family was killed or whatever but the whole war thing was a bit of an inconvenience’_ gala,” said Blaise.

“Nailed it,” said Draco, shaking off a burst of grief for his father. “Did you order the pizzas already, or what?”

“I actually think, in many ways, me choosing _not_ to get involved was way harder than people like Weasley choosing to fight.”

Draco raised his eyebrows, and Blaise laughed.

“Okay, fine, I had it easier than Weasley. But come on! Four years I’ve been trying to get an invite, literally _who_ do I have to shag to make the cut?”

“One _might_ make the argument that the intended invitee is the one for whom the gala is a meaningful war memorial, not a coveted chance to see-and-be-seen,” said Draco. 

Blaise deflated.

“Yeah, I know that. I do,” he said. He glanced at Draco. “It’s just frustrating. It’s hard knowing how easy everything would be for me, if I had just been born a little earlier or later.”

Draco resisted the urge to tell Blaise that he had _no idea_ how easy he had it. That Draco would have given anything, anything at all, for the ease with which Blaise moved through the Wizarding World. 

“It’s hard not to have the things you expected,” he said, as a compromise. Because he knew how true that was, and because Blaise was patient with him when Draco had weird moral freak-outs late at night. 

The last one had been about climate change—it had occurred to Draco suddenly that just existing was maybe a form of evil, and he had spent hours scribbling in notebooks, trying to calculate mathematically whether killing himself would be a net good, or merely neutral. He hadn’t _wanted_ to die, of course. He never did. But he got lost in his notes and data, and called Blaise at two in the morning, hurtling through research. 

“Draco. Draco. Slow down,” Blaise had said.

“I just can’t be sure that I’m not being selfish,” said Draco. “I can’t figure it out; I was looking into Tuvalu, you know the island nation of Tuvalu? It’s in the Pacific, and if the sea level rises—”

“You’re going to kill yourself because of Tuvalu?” 

“Well, I’d much rather not,” said Draco. “But I just don’t trust myself—so maybe you could come over this weekend and look at the data, because I’m trying to sort through it methodically, but unfortunately the emotional component makes it harder for me to be unbiased—”

“I don’t think you should kill yourself,” said Blaise.

“You haven’t seen the data,” said Draco. “I’ve got some pretty convincing graphs.”

“Shouldn’t we all just kill ourselves, then?”

“Don’t be obtuse. My case is more morally complicated than most,” said Draco, shuffling the stack of papers where he had tried to calculate the real human impact of his actions during the war. 

“Go get a glass of water from the kitchen. Keep me on the phone,” said Blaise. Draco obeyed. By the time he had finished drinking, Blaise was at his flat. “Show me the research,” said Blaise. He had a party the next day, an important one, and a photoshoot. It was the middle of the night. But he sat on Draco’s bed, head tilted thoughtfully to one side, and let Draco explain the data to him. He was patient and questioning. After forty-five minutes, he shifted on the bed.

“Okay,” he said. “I think I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“Hang on, I haven’t shown you the pie chart about birth rates in Bangladesh,” said Draco.

“Draco: I understand your research. I understand how you’ve got here. And you are being fucking crazy.”

Draco took what felt like his first breath in hours.

“I am?”

“Yes,” said Blaise. “Remember that time you were convinced you had a moral duty to become a war journalist in the Middle East? Even though you don’t like writing, or war, or travelling, or learning new languages?”

“You think this is like that?”

“It’s exactly like that. I promise. You’re just…” Blaise sighed. “When do you see your therapist?”

“Wednesday. I was planning on making a Power Point.” Draco held his Bangladesh birth rates pie chart to his chest, his pulse throbbing.

“Remember that thing she told you, about distracting yourself from existential moral terror? Rather than ruminating?”

“Right,” said Draco, because he did remember, only he hadn’t thought this applied. “It’s just that I don’t want to be a force for evil again, and the colonial implications of climate change are—”

“Let’s watch a film,” said Blaise.

“Can I just show you this pie chart very quickly?”

“No,” said Blaise. “You’re being crazy.”

Draco put the pie chart down, nodding.

“It helps, when you say that,” he said. 

“You need to stop thinking about this,” said Blaise. “Yeah?”

Draco nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said. And Blaise put on one of the _Fast and the Furious_ films, and they watched it in bed together, not talking. Draco fell asleep during the fourth car chase. When he woke up, Blaise was gone, but there was a cup of tea in a thermos on his bedside table, and a note that said _“Draco’s to-do list: STOP BEING INSANE.”_

Blaise was there for him when Draco got wobbly. And yes, the things that made Draco wobbly were huge and catastrophic, but that didn’t make them less important than the things that upset Blaise. 

“I’m always the only Slytherin at these events,” said Blaise. 

“What about the older Slytherins?” 

“They don’t talk to me,” said Blaise. “They’re dicks, honestly. Pulling the ladder up after them.”

“Clever,” said Draco. “It’s what you would do.”

Blaise looked at him, and Draco could tell he was grateful that Draco hadn’t said “It’s what you’ve done.”

“How’ve you been?” asked Blaise. 

“Good.”

“You haven’t been… researching?”

“I had a bit of a wobble over the weekend, but Theo took me to the National Portrait gallery,” said Draco. 

“And that worked?”

“It—yeah. More or less.” Draco had gone home and spent hours on his computer, researching carbon emissions. But he hadn’t come up with any grandiose and self-sacrificial plans, so he counted that as a win. 

“How’s work?”

“Good, yeah,” said Draco. “Feels a bit weird that there’s a magical cure for malaria and I can’t tell anybody.”

“Don’t start this again.”

“I was looking into the prison sentence for that sort of breach of the Statute of Secrecy, and it’s actually only seven years.”

“It wouldn’t be seven years for _you_ ,” said Blaise. “You _know_ the Wizengamot was dying to put you away for life.”

“Malaria kills a lot of people, though,” said Draco. “And I haven’t got a family, so better me than—”

“Draco.”

“I’m doing it again, aren’t I.”

“You are,” said Blaise. Draco scrunched up his face. It was confusing inside his head.

“Potter’s been writing to me,” he blurted. 

He hadn’t meant to bring it up. Blaise had long ago told him that Potter was off-limits, conversationally. Blaise mentioned him sometimes, dismissively, as if Potter was just another famous idiot Blaise was trying to get in with. But Draco had heard how Blaise was with Potter. Often, when Draco was talking to Blaise on the phone, Potter would let himself into Blaise’s flat. He’d say hello in the same friendly tone he used with Weasley and Granger, and Blaise would answer just as comfortably. Draco knew better than anyone that the way Blaise spoke about a person behind their back bore no relation to how he really felt about them.

But Blaise reacted quite unpredictably to Draco’s words. His eyebrows drew sorrowfully together.

“Oh, no,” he said. 

“What?”

“Oh—Draco. He’s—he said he might do that, but I didn’t think he _would_.”

“Do what?” asked Draco. 

“Prank you.”

“Prank…?”

Blaise’s face was full of pity. 

“He showed me your letter. Obviously I knew right away that Fledgeling had done it again, and that you hadn’t meant to send it, so I told him you were probably just pulling his leg. He said he might prank you back.”

“Prank me _how?”_

“Well, what did he say?”

Draco felt an abrupt, anxious, twisting pain in his chest.

“Oh,” he said. 

“What?”

“He asked some rather personal questions.” Draco let his head droop forward. “Goyle said he wanted to get to know me.”

“Look, Potter’s not a bad guy. I’m sure he won’t do anything too awful,” said Blaise.

“Anything too awful,” repeated Draco. _Idiot, idiot._ What did Potter think was _not too awful?_ That spell that had nearly killed Draco in sixth year? Draco ran through all the things he had said in his letters, imagined them plastered all over the _Prophet_.

“Did you think he was…” asked Blaise, delicately.

“Into me? Of course not,” said Draco. 

Blaise made a tiny, sceptical movement of his head.

“I thought he was open to the idea,” mumbled Draco. “Maybe. A bit. I just got hopeful, all right?”

“Yeah,” said Blaise. “I’m so sorry.”

“I need a cigarette.”

Blaise passed him one. Blaise didn’t smoke, but it was one of the quiet ways he tried to show Draco he cared about him. He always brought a packet of fancy cigarettes, the kind that Draco only got on special occasions, and left them behind on purpose. Draco cast a quick spell at the smoke detector and lit up. 

“Tell me about your waistcoat,” he said, gesturing at the waistcoat in question with his chin. 

“What about it?”

“It’s a bit much, isn’t it? No wonder Potter thought you were gay.”

“He told you that?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Draco. 

“Speaking of me not-being-gay, I’m in love.”

Draco blew out a mouthful of smoke.

“Of course you are,” he said.

“Really, this time. She’s wife material. Her father’s the minister of finance, and her mother runs a cooking spells company.”

“She sounds very rich,” said Draco.

“She’s pretty, too,” said Blaise. 

“Wife material, indeed,” said Draco. Blaise twitched slightly. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“I’m not thinking anything,” said Draco.

“You’re thinking about Pansy.”

“Who?”

“Ha, ha. Look, Pansy knows as well as anyone that I can’t—and I never promised her anything.”

“No,” agreed Draco. “You just sleep with her whenever you get sad.”

Blaise looked away. Draco reflected that expensive cigarettes really did taste better than cheap ones. 

“Her name’s Etta,” said Blaise. 

“Your future wife.”

“Yes.”

“I hope you’ll be very happy,” said Draco. 

Blaise stood. 

“Let’s go clubbing. I want to get smashed.”

“All right,” said Draco. “I have pills somewhere. Where shall we go? _Shimmer?”_

 _Shimmer_ was the most fashionable club on Diagon Alley. The thought of Blaise agreeing to be seen there with Draco was, of course, ludicrous. He went with Potter, though. Draco had seen the pictures in _Witch Weekly._

“There’s that place in Leeds,” said Blaise. Draco smiled tightly. 

“Leeds it is,” he said. 


	4. Chapter 4

  
Draco didn’t answer Harry’s letter. Harry told himself it was probably because Draco was busy being a depressing data analyst. Then he decided it was probably because the whole thing had been a weird joke/fever dream. Then he decided that he had hurt Draco’s feelings.

_Draco,_

_I genuinely didn’t mean to upset you, if_

  
He scrunched up the attempt. It was two in the afternoon on a Sunday. Blaise would just be getting out of bed. Harry let himself into his flat. 

“Blaise?”

Blaise’s voice was muffled. 

“Mmgmmmgf?”

He was still in bed. He looked very rough.

“Afternoon!” said Harry brightly.

“Mmgmmmgf,” said Blaise. Harry brought him some orange juice and climbed onto the end of the bed. Blaise was mercifully clothed, and became a bit more human as he drank. 

“To what do I owe the honour?” he asked, when he could get his eyes open. 

“How’s Malfoy at the moment?” asked Harry.

Blaise stiffened.

“Malfoy who?”

Harry pursed his mouth, and reminded himself that you couldn’t go about things with Blaise the way you would with Ron or Hermione.

“It’s a bit fucked up, you know. The way you pretend you don’t know him,” he said. 

“Unnh, _Gryffindors_ ,” said Blaise. “What does it matter what I say about someone when they’re not there?”

“I just want to know how he is,” said Harry.

“How should I know?”

Harry resisted shaking him. 

“Maybe,” he said, “because he’s your best friend, and the only person you trust with your real personality, and you talk to him on the phone every day when you cook dinner.’

Blaise’s hands balled up in the duvet.

“Excuse me?”

“Give it up, Blaise. It’s pathetic, and it’s cowardly. If you care about someone, you should treat them like they matter.”

Blaise only blinked at him.

“And you still haven’t answered my question,” said Harry. “How is he?”

“A bit mad,” said Blaise. He spoke as if the words had been shocked out of him. 

“Mad?”

“He’s not my secret gay lover,” said Blaise.

“Er?” said Harry. “Okay?”

“Just, you were acting as if he’s my secret gay lover. And he’s not.”

“Right. And he’s… mad.”

“No, I mean, he’s just a quite an anxious person,” said Blaise. “And I told him that you were pranking him with your letters, and he—”

“You what?!”

***

Half an hour later, Harry stood on the doorstep of Draco’s flat. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he was doing. He felt as if his head had been spinning ever since he got Draco’s first letter. _I’ve loved you half my life_. Draco Malfoy: horrible, spoiled, nasty Draco Malfoy, symbol of everything Harry had never had. Draco Malfoy, who liked his job as a data analyst because it was morally complex.

Draco opened the door when Harry rang the bell. He looked different and the same from how he’d looked in school. Better-dressed, certainly, and quietly better-looking, although Harry couldn’t tell if it was really that he was handsomer, or if it was that he looked much, much happier. His posture was relaxed, and his face seemed set in easy lines, as if he expected to like everyone he met. 

“Potter,” he said blankly.

“Hi,” said Harry. “Er, can I come in?”

“Certainly,” said Draco, and stepped back into the flat. It was dingy. Draco led him down a cramped corridor to a door that sagged slightly on its hinges. He opened it just a crack, and immediately shut it again when the sound of crazed, shrieking laughter came spilling out.

“Let’s go to my room,” he said. Harry looked curiously at the closed door, and Draco sighed. “They’re playing Hunt the King.”

“What’s Hunt the King?” asked Harry.

Draco shook his head sorrowfully. 

“It’s a _silly_ game,” he said, but did not elaborate. He led Harry up some creaky stairs to his bedroom.

Draco’s bedroom was covered, absolutely covered, in muggle posters. They thickly papered the walls, crowding over each other: posters of films, of bands, of American depression era photography, of 19th century French art. There was a Modigliani nude and Munch’s ‘The Scream’. There was Casper the Friendly Ghost and the Flintstones and Audrey Hepburn in a tiara. 

“Wow,” said Harry. “Uh.”

Draco stood by the bed, staring at him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” said Harry. 

No, Draco definitely was better-looking than he used to be. It wasn’t just that he seemed happier. He had grown into himself: he was a little taller, his features were more even. His skin looked—touchable. Harry wanted to touch it. 

“What’s the plan, then?” asked Draco. His voice was uneven. “I understand you’ve got one. I personally feel you’ve got more than enough to shame me from my letters, but I suppose thoroughness is what sets heroes apart from the rest of us.”

Oh, right.

“I wasn’t trying to shame you,” said Harry. “I was extremely confused, but I wasn’t messing you around. I promise.”

Draco frowned, not looking at Harry. 

“Blaise said—”

“Why do you let him treat you like that? Keep you a secret? Doesn’t it make you angry?”

Draco laughed, still not meeting Harry’s eye.

“Yes. It does,” he said. 

There was a moment of silence. Then Draco looked up. Big grey eyes in a thin pale face. He had the colouring of a black-and-white photograph. It was so obvious, now that Harry looked at him. It was so obvious that this would feel good.

“I’ve decided we should date,” said Harry.

Draco didn’t miss a beat.

“Okay,” he said.

“I’m not asking you to be my boyfriend,” clarified Harry. Draco looked shocked.

“Of course not,” he said, stepping backwards.

“Well, hang on,” said Harry, a little offended. “I thought you wanted to be my boyfriend.”

“I—you just said you didn’t want…?” said Draco.

“Yeah, but there’s no point in us dating if you don’t _eventually_ want to be my boyfriend,” said Harry.

Draco nodded a slow, confused nod that turned into a shake of the head.

“Yeah, no, I’m too stoned for this,” he said. 

“It’s like two-thirty in the afternoon?” said Harry. 

“It’s Eurovision weekend,” said Draco, as if this would explain everything. 

“So should I leave…?” said Harry. 

“No!” Draco surged forward, hands held out. “No. I just, I’m confused.”

“I’m confused, too,” said Harry. “That fucking letter you sent me… the first one, I mean. Actually, no, all of them. What the fuck.”

Draco was looking at him with a strange, hopeful, joyous expression. It lit him up behind the eyes.

“You’re so very beautiful,” said Draco. 

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again. He could feel the blood mounting in his cheeks.

“Me?” he asked. Draco nodded.

“You,” he said. 

Harry couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading not just across his face, but through him, somehow. No one had ever called him beautiful. 

“So are you,” he said. Draco took another step forward, and Harry tentatively put his hands to Draco’s waist. Draco put his arms around Harry’s shoulders. 

“I’m not an easy person,” said Draco. 

“You’ve got to be easier than you were,” said Harry. Draco looked thoughtful. His face was so close. Harry tilted his head so that their noses slotted against each other.

“No,” said Draco, “frankly, I think I’m just difficult in fun new ways. You’ll see.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, speaking softly, the word brushing against Draco’s lips. “I will.”

_ One Month Later _

“But you _said_ we weren’t exclusive!” said Draco. 

“I know what I said!” said Harry, running a hand through his inky hair. He was clearly bristling with frustration, which Draco didn’t understand at _all_.

“You said—you said you were seeing other people!” said Draco. 

“I should go,” said Klaus. He was wearing nothing but an old quidditch jersey of Draco’s, and his penis peeped innocently out from beneath the hem. 

“Would you like breakfast?” offered Draco politely. 

“You should have told me you had a boyfriend,” said Klaus. 

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” said Draco. “Harry, tell him.”

Harry did _not_ tell him. He only continued to glower at Klaus.

Harry had gone away for the weekend—it was Ron’s stag-do. Draco had spent Friday evening determinedly _not_ freaking out. Unfortunately, Blaise was also on Ron’s stag-do, so Draco had been obliged to not-freak out with Pansy, Theo and Goyle. The evening had gone something like this:

  
Draco (picking at hangnails until they bled): … Of course we both agreed that we weren’t exclusive. I mean, that would have been mad, we scarcely know each other. So it’s really for the best if he’s fucking someone else right now. In the long term, I mean. 

Pansy: You’re embarrassing yourself, Draco. You should ditch him and marry a muggle millionaire. I found a Sugar Daddy website that I think you would clean up on.

Theo: Draco’s not in a position to be a Sugar Daddy.

Pansy: Don’t be Goylish, Theo. 

Goyle: …Hey!

Pansy: Obviously, Draco would be the Sugar Baby.

Draco: I mean, he could be sleeping with multiple people, and personally I don’t think he’d have a responsibility to tell me, because we’re just keeping it casual, you know?

Theo: Astoria thinks Potter’s really attractive. Where are they, again? Berlin? There’s probably tons of hot Germans there.

Draco: (indecipherable sounds of grief)

Pansy: Fine! I’ll admit it! I already made you an account on the Sugar Daddy website, and you’ve had twelve requests since Wednesday.

Theo: Twelve! Let me see. 

Draco: Maybe Harry doesn’t _know_ I’m in love with him.

Pansy: He knows.

Theo: How would he not know.

Goyle: You told him, didn’t you? In your letter, and the first time you had sex, and whenever you drunk dial him, and that time when he came over while we were playing Hunt the King and you were on the Veritaserum round…

Draco: It’s a _silly_ game.

Theo: They’re all quite gay in Berlin, aren’t they? 

Draco: Are they?

Theo: I’ve only read Christopher Isherwood. They seem quite gay in that. _(Reflective head tilt.)_ But maybe they’re all blond. I’m not into blonds.

Draco: … _Harry_ is into blonds!

Pansy: He’s probably balls deep in some blond boy he _didn’t_ spend his entire childhood hating. Come look at these Sugar Daddies.

Draco: (low groaning sound)

Goyle: Or maybe he’s just having drinks with Blaise and Weasley.

Theo _(looking at the Sugar Daddy website)_ : Draco, some of these men aren’t too bad looking. How do you feel about baldness?

Pansy: This one has a country house in Dorset. Dorset’s lovely. He says he likes your nubile body, Draco.

Draco: How does he know about my nubile body??

Pansy: I uploaded that photo I took of you in the shower.

Draco: Right. That’s it. Tomorrow, I’m shagging someone.

  
Thus, Klaus, who had been a perfectly agreeable sexual partner, if you didn’t mind dizzying loneliness.

But at ten o’ clock on Sunday morning, Harry had come into Draco’s bedroom with a bunch of flowers, and got rather shouty at the sight of Klaus and his guileless, dangling pink penis.

“I will go,” said Klaus, with much dignity.

“It was lovely to meet you,” said Draco. Klaus nodded. 

“You have a very nubile body,” he said. Harry made a strained, growly sort of sound. 

“Thank you,” said Draco. Harry’s eyes flickered between Draco, who was naked except for the duvet he had wrapped around his waist, and Klaus, who seemed to have given up on finding his boxers and gone straight for his jeans. After what felt like a very long time, Klaus was dressed. 

“Goodbye, Duko,” he said, seriously.

“Draco,” corrected Harry, through gritted teeth. Klaus frowned.

“Really? I thought it was Duko,” he said, looking at Draco. “You should have said.”

“I thought you had a speech impediment,” said Draco. 

“Oh. Well, goodbye, Draco.”

“Goodbye,” said Draco.

“And don’t come back,” said Harry, which Draco thought was rude, and also unnecessary. He doubted very much that Klaus would be pursuing Draco in any capacity, after Harry had glared at him like that.

The door shut behind Klaus. Harry was staring at Draco, but Draco couldn’t meet his eye, and his stomach churned with a fearful sort of pain. 

“Have I done something wrong,” he managed to say. A second later, there were warm hands on Draco’s shoulders, and Harry was pulling Draco into his chest.

“No,” said Harry. “No, sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You said you were sleeping with other people,” said Draco, the choking pain reaching his throat. Harry pressed Draco’s face into his shoulder and spoke into Draco’s ear.

“ _Seeing_ ,” he said. “I went on a date with a guy a week ago. It was rubbish. He wasn’t you.”

“I thought you were having kinky German sex with a tattooed underground DJ,” said Draco.

“You were the one having German sex,” said Harry. “Where the hell did you even find him?”

“There’s this website that Pansy—you know, I don’t want to go into it,” said Draco. The duvet had fallen down between them. Draco stepped out of it. He was naked, but Harry held him too tightly for it to feel vulnerable. 

“I haven’t slept with anyone since I started seeing you,” said Harry.

“But you said—”

Harry pushed him backwards onto the bed and climbed on top of him. 

“Fuck what I said. I want you for myself,” said Harry. “Let me have you.”

“Okay,” said Draco. 

“Just me,” said Harry.

“Does this go both ways?” asked Draco, through kisses. 

“Yes. I want to _belong_ to you,” said Harry. 

“O-okay,” said Draco. Harry paused, his mouth against Draco’s neck.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Yes.”

Harry slid off him, propped himself up on one elbow, and looked at Draco with a faceful of affection. 

“Because you thought you’d fucked up,” he said. Draco nodded. 

“I thought I’d misunderstood and cheated on you,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Harry. “I was just jealous.” He stroked Draco’s cheek. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Okay,” said Draco. “I have a stomach ache.”

Harry kissed him. 

“I’ll make you peppermint tea,” he said. He got the duvet off the floor and tucked it around Draco. 

“Harry,” said Draco, when Harry was at the door. Harry looked at him expectantly. “So… we’re exclusive?”

“Go out with me, Draco,” said Harry, and slipped away with a grin. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of suicide, again bc of Draco's anxiety not because an actual desire for suicide
> 
> Look, Blaise just walked into this fic and stole it from me and I truly don't feel as if I had any say in the matter.

_ Two Months Later _

Etta von Ranke beamed at the photographers. Next to her, Blaise’s smile was brittle and false.

“Blaise looks miserable,” said Ron. “This is the least promising engagement party yet. Good food, though.”

“Yeah, those shrimp sticks were great,” said Harry. 

“I give them two years,” said Ron. 

Draco, of course, was not at Blaise’s engagement party, nor were any of the Slytherins. 

Within about two weeks of dating Draco, it had become apparent to Harry that Blaise was sleeping with Pansy. He frequently came to Draco’s flat when Harry did, pretending he’d come to say hello to Draco and Theo, then disappearing into Pansy’s bedroom.

“Do you think Etta knows?” Harry asked Draco. Draco hadn’t answered right away. They had been in bed, quiet and close. 

“I don’t know. Probably she does on some level. I think everyone close to Blaise knows that he is betraying them in one way or another.”

“That’s… horrible,” said Harry. 

There followed another long pause.

“There is nothing that could happen between me and Blaise that would prevent him from helping me if I really needed it,” said Draco.

“Yeah, same with me and Ron and Hermione, and they don’t—”

In the darkness, he felt Draco shake his head.

“No,” said Draco. “No, if you hurt Ron too badly—if Hermione thought you were doing something evil—no. Blaise would help me _no matter what_ , you understand? And that sort of loyalty has to be paid for. We pay by suffering the small betrayals.”

“They’re not small betrayals,” said Harry.

“He ranks his loyalty differently from other people. His internal logic makes sense.”

“He’s _cheating_ on Etta!”

“Because Pansy comes first,” said Draco. 

“Then why is he treating Pansy like shit?”

“Because Blaise comes first,” said Draco. 

  
Blaise, interestingly, began talking about Draco with Harry, as if he had been longing for someone to confide in. 

“None of them can look after him,” he explained one day, over a half-hearted game of air hockey. “Goyle’s got all the insight of a pot plant. Pansy—” his breath hitched.

“Pansy?” said Harry. 

“She’s… utilitarian. And prejudiced against muggles, if I’m honest. So Draco doesn’t trust anything she says.”

Draco trusted Blaise’s advice, which Harry found puzzling, because the more he got to know Blaise, the more apparent it was that Blaise’s moral compass did not point due north. 

“And then Theo’s worse than useless,” Blaise went on, “because he has this ghastly habit of _agreeing_ with Draco’s schemes. Like when Draco wanted to give away his liver on the internet and grow a new one by magic. Theo did all this research for him and told him to go for it—but do you know how unstable magically regrown livers are? They give out if you so much as _smell_ alcohol. Have you _met_ Draco? Sobriety is not in the cards for him. It was a mad plan. They always are.”

Harry thought about scoring a goal, then couldn’t be bothered. He leant his hip against the air hockey table. 

“Do you know that he makes a shedload of money at his job?” said Blaise. 

“Who? Theo?”

“Draco,” said Blaise. “He gives eighty thousand pounds a year to charity and lives off the scraps. He doesn’t own a winter coat. Look, I get that he did bad things, but there’s remorse, and then there’s…” He trailed off and passed his hand over his face. “Sorry. I’ve just been so fucking worried about him for so long.”

When Harry thought about it, he knew that what Draco had said was true. Blaise would sell Harry out in a heartbeat if he needed to. But he’d also never stop caring about Harry; never, no matter what. It was a strange, conflicting sort of realisation. 

“Think of it as being friends with a polar bear who would eat you if it got hungry,” said Draco. 

Etta von Ranke posed with her left hand splayed against Blaise’s chest. The diamond glittered dangerously on her finger, and Harry couldn’t do it any longer. He left and went to the Slytherin flat. 

  
Pansy was aiming shattering hexes at a row of empty beer bottles. Draco, meanwhile, was oddly manic.

“Hallo, Harry! Want some cake? I’m making cake. Don’t even worry about it, cake is coming. Just relax and the cake will _come to you_.”

“I already ate,” said Harry. 

“Red velvet okay?” said Draco, ignoring him completely. “Okay! Perfect! Cake time!” 

He disappeared into the kitchen.

“Is he on drugs?” Harry asked Pansy.

“ _Finestra_ ,” said Pansy, and the next bottle broke into shards. “No, Potter, he’s not. Draco has a rule. He doesn’t take drugs when he feels like shit.”

“He feels like shit?”

“Clever one, aren’t you,” said Pansy. “ _Finestra_.”

“Why is he upset?”

“Same reason I’m about ready to slice a throat right now, Potter.”

“Because Blaise didn’t invite him to his engagement party?”

Pansy lowered her wand in a sharp, militaristic motion. 

“No, Potter. Tell me, did anyone ever try to keep you a secret?”

Harry thought of his twelfth birthday, and sitting in his bedroom, making no noise and pretending he didn’t exist.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was rubbish.”

Pansy smiled wolfishly, angrily.

“Well, then. That’s why Draco is next door making his third cake of the night.”

Harry sighed. 

“I wish Blaise—”

Pansy shrieked. (She did this a lot. But this was a particularly unpleasant one.)

“Not _Blaise_ , you imbecile! _You!”_

“Me?” said Harry. “But I’m not keeping Draco a secret. Hang on, does he think I am?”

Pansy seemed at a loss for words. 

“Oh,” said Harry. “Oh, he does, doesn’t he.”

  
There were, indeed, two fully iced cakes already on the kitchen counter. Draco straightened up when Harry came in. 

“Cake?” he said, looking slightly deranged. There was icing in his eyebrows.

“Draco, you loon. I’m not keeping you a secret,” said Harry.

Draco faltered. Egg yolk dripped from the whisk in his hand. 

“I’m not a loon,” he said.

“You’re king of the loons, mate,” said Harry.

“What do you mean, you’re not keeping me a secret,” said Draco. He had flour all over him. It made him look as if he was wearing face powder.

“Just that,” said Harry.

“But we never—we only ever hang out here. I thought, I mean, I assumed…”

“Draco. You have a fairly robust anxiety disorder. I was trying to hang out where you were comfortable,” said Harry. “Everyone knows you’re my boyfriend.”

“Everyone?” repeated Draco.

“Ron, Hermione, the Weasleys, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Luna… I don’t know, everyone,” said Harry. 

The whisk fell to the floor.

“Shit,” said Draco, and crouched to clean it up. Harry crouched next to him and waved his wand at the mess of egg on the linoleum. 

Draco grabbed his wrist. 

“You’re telling me that you told Ron Weasley that I, Draco Malfoy, am your boyfriend,” he said. 

“Ages ago,” said Harry. Draco’s eyes were wide and serious. 

“You’re not ashamed of me,” he said.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you are considerably better looking than I am,” said Harry. 

“You’re very good looking!” said Draco angrily, as if he was speaking to someone who had just insulted Harry, not Harry himself. 

“I’m not ashamed of you,” said Harry, dipping forward for a kiss. But Draco stood and moved away.

“Then…” Draco chewed on his lip for a moment. “Then, I want to have drinks with Ron and Hermione.”

“Okay,” said Harry, standing up. “Does Tuesday work?”

“Oh, you’re not bluffing,” said Draco. 

“No,” said Harry. “I’m not.”

Draco came towards him. Harry licked his finger and tried to get the icing out of Draco’s eyebrow with it.

“You look sort of 18th-century-hot with flour all over you,” he said. 

“Thanks,” said Draco. “Just trying to spice up our sex life.”

“I don’t think we need it,” said Harry. 

“No, you’re probably right. Come upstairs,” said Draco. 

Draco’s third cake of the day was left to burn to a crisp in the oven. 

  
———

Harry had invited Draco to the Ministry’s latest fundraiser gala, but Draco declined. 

“Free food,” Harry had said. Draco got out his phone, looked at his calendar, then said,

“Yes, as I thought: I’ll be very busy hiding from the sins of my past that day.”

So Harry attended alone. He quickly found Blaise, who had befriended one of the champagne waitresses. He was holding a champagne glass in each hand.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” said Harry, trying to take one of Blaise’s glasses. “Francis Marlowe just tried to snog me in the loos.”

“Is he gay?” asked Blaise, tugging his hand away. “Get your own. These are _my_ bad decisions.”

“Think he’s just ambitious,” said Harry.

“Oh, yes, that reminds me,” said Blaise. “Will you be best man at my wedding?”

Harry laughed.

“No,” he said. “Not even—no.”

“Why not?” asked Blaise, sounding rather indignant. 

“A) I want nothing to do with your appalling first marriage—”

“I wish you’d stop calling it that,” said Blaise, gloomily.

“—and b) Draco should be your best man. I’m not coming to the wedding if he’s not.”

“I thought my life would be _easier_ once you two fell in love,” said Blaise.

“I’m not—I haven’t used that word yet,” said Harry.

“So you won’t be my best man. Fine. I’ll ask Longbottom.”

“You don’t even like Neville!”

Blaise raised his eyebrows. 

“Of course I like him. Fascinating chap. Always talking about plants.”

Harry felt that vague, disappointed anger that Blaise so often awoke in him.

“I used to respect you,” he told him, and went off to look for Ron. 

Neville was Blaise’s best man at the wedding. Harry spend the night at the Slytherin house, learning the (still highly dangerous) beginner’s version of Hunt the King, and trying not to notice how red Pansy’s eyes were.

  
_ Two Months Later _

  
_Dear Draco,_

_I haven’t had a chance to write to you all day, which was annoying, because I woke up this morning and I realised that I am absolutely, completely, head-over-heels in love with you. I brushed my teeth and thought about how every time I go to your room you have a new poster up and it makes me want to crack your head open to figure out what goes on in there. I ate cereal and remembered how enthusiastic and yes, flexible you are in bed. I got dressed and wished you were there so I could come kiss you every thirty seconds. You’re funny and I love you. You’re handsome and I love you. You’re crazy and I love you._

_Since you’ve been in love for a while, any advice for a novice? How, for instance, am I supposed to concentrate at work when you’re in my head, all lanky and contradictory and absent? Serious question. I am stumped._

_GOODNIGHT FROM YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND,_

_Harry Potter_

  
_Dear Harry,_

_That is quite the predicament. As someone who has been in love for longer than I care to admit, here is my advice._

_a) Have you tried being extremely unkind to the object of your affections? Consider stomping on his face. In my experience, this one’s a winner._

_b) Failing that: could you ignore them for several years and hope that your heart will fix upon a more reasonable candidate, only to discover that your personality grew around the shape of this person and is stuck like that forever?_

_c) Another option: drink half a litre of rum while covertly watching your extremely straight, extremely buff housemate work out, then write a drunken love letter to the object of your affections that you fervently hope he will never read._

_Does that help?_

_More seriously: Do you mean it?_

_Yours,_

_Draco_

  
_Dear Draco,_

_Can I come over? I know you said you were busy, but please can I come over?_

_Love,_

_Harry_

  
There was a knock on Harry’s door about half an hour later. When he opened it, it was Draco. He looked twitchy and uncertain. He had been to Harry’s flat several times, but only ever for drinks with Ron and Hermione.

“He’s a bit mad, isn’t he?” Ron had said, after the first drinks night. Draco had monologued what amounted to a stand-up comedy routine about the disintegration of the NHS. It had been very funny, very distressing, and wholly inappropriate. 

“Yeah,” said Harry, “quite mad.”

It had reassured Draco to meet up with Ron and Hermione; to have lunch at the Burrow, to be invited to Neville’s board game night. Draco was evidently rather bruised about being a secret. 

Blaise was at Neville’s games night. He was cordial and distant to Draco. 

Despite Harry’s efforts to make Draco comfortable in his world, Draco didn’t seem to like Harry’s flat. He preferred to meet in muggle pubs, and spend time with the Slytherins. Harry suspected this was the lingering effect of Blaise’s secrecy. 

“Hi,” said Draco. “Is this all right?”

Harry pulled him inside.

“Hi,” said Harry, kissing him up against the closed door. “I love you.”

“Right, yes, that’s what I’m here to discuss,” said Draco, kissing his way down Harry’s neck.

“Of course,” said Harry. “Top of the agenda: my feelings.”

They got distracted for a while. When Draco next spoke, they were panting and mostly naked on the sofa. 

“Just so that we’re on the same page,” he said, putting his weight onto his elbows on either side of Harry’s face, “you’re not just…trying me on for size.”

“Where do you get these insecurities? Like where do they come from?”

“My therapist says my parents gaslit me,” said Draco. 

“Oh,” said Harry, growing serious. “Yeah, okay. No, I’m really excited about you.”

Draco’s eyes moved searchingly over Harry’s face.

“Are we okay?” asked Harry. 

“Sometimes I suddenly remember who we are,” said Draco, “and how unlikely this all is.”

“Me, too,” said Harry.

  
———

Draco hid his wobbles from Harry for as long as he could, although he knew Harry guessed. He suspected Blaise told him, in fact. 

Blaise had started being publicly friendly to Draco—although only tentatively, coldly. He and Etta bought a house and threw elaborate parties, and Draco was always invited. Draco went because he was curious about Etta, and soon wished he hadn’t. Etta was lovely. Not nearly as clever as Pansy, but considerably kinder. She was generous and hospitable, and went out of her way to set Draco at ease. 

“She sounds too good for him,” said Pansy, when Draco told her.

“You both are,” said Draco. 

“Doesn’t stop him from having us, though, does it,” said Pansy, turning away. She had broken things off with Blaise when he got engaged.

It was awkward when Blaise came to the flat. It broke Blaise’s heart to see Pansy, they all knew that, although none of them sympathised. All the same, it meant a lot to Draco that Blaise still came whenever Draco called. Still sat patiently in Draco’s tiny bedroom, listening to Draco’s theories and helping Draco weed out the crazy from the good. 

One of the knots in Draco’s mind was to do with organ donation. He always came back to that idea, and although he would remember that Blaise had talked him out of it before, he would find himself entirely unable to recreate the argument himself. 

Maybe he was just tired—he hadn’t been eating well for a few days—maybe it was that the charity he had been investigating at work had been a quiet and insidious form of evil pretending benevolence—but he fell deep into his laptop one evening, until the choking feeling made it hard to breathe. 

Blaise did not pick up. He texted though, right away: “Draco—sorry—fight with Etta—everything ok?”

Draco tried to draw a breath and couldn’t. 

“Fine,” he texted back.

“If something’s wrong DON’T go to T and P,” texted Blaise. “Tell Harry.”

Draco resisted the idea for a while, but then he thought of Harry’s warm hands, his strong arms, the soft way he said Draco’s name. Draco didn’t call. He just went to Harry’s flat.

“Hey!” said Harry, delighted, when he opened the door. Then, “shit, what happened?”

“If I killed myself and donated my body to science I could probably save like ten people’s lives,” said Draco. 

Harry gaped at him for a second, then laughed. He _laughed_.

“Oh, you’re darling. Let me get Hermione,” he said.

“The moral rightness of an act depends on its consequences,” said Draco, following him into the flat.

“Hang on,” said Harry, who was bent over the fireplace. “You’re too clever for me. I love you.”

Draco tried to hang onto that, _I love you_ , but he kept _thinking_ , just _thinking_ , in terrible, rational, dooming loops. Harry sat him down in an armchair and got him a glass of water. 

“Do you want to go flying together sometime?” he asked.

“What,” said Draco.

“Ron and Ginny and I sometimes fly around the fields in the Burrow. You should come.”

Draco couldn’t focus.

“Yeah, okay,” he said.

“Saturday,” said Harry. “Let’s do it this Saturday.”

“Okay,” said Draco, and maybe Harry did know what he was doing, because the aching, swollen feeling in his chest seemed to have soothed slightly at the distraction. 

Hermione came through the floo. Draco and Hermione had got on perfectly well, all the times they had run into each other since Draco started dating Harry, but that was because Draco had been on his best behaviour. He was keenly aware of how ragged he was now, how utterly incapable of being agreeable. 

“I should warn you,” he said. “I’m not very useful, just now.”

“Tell me all about it,” she said. 

Harry crawled into the armchair behind Draco, his chest to Draco’s back, his legs around Draco’s waist. Occasionally, he kissed the back of Draco’s neck. Hermione, meanwhile, listened to Draco’s long explanation with an intent look on her face, her clever eyes thoughtful and serious.

“…so…” said Draco, after about fifteen minutes, because he sensed he was talking in circles. “So you see, it’s—I know, I can _tell_ it’s mad, but I can’t see why—I can’t—and you know, I haven’t the best track record with making the right decisions—”

Hermione nodded. 

“Are you familiar with the philosopher Emmanuel Kant?” she asked. Harry laughed. 

“What?” asked Hermione, sounding affronted.

“No, sorry, go on.”

Hermione sniffed.

“Kant says that—to simplify—every person is an end-in-themselves,” she said. “Their value is unconditional. It doesn’t depend on anything else. You cannot use a person as a means to an end, because a person _is_ an end.”

Draco stared at her. Her voice was calm, and he understood it. It made sense to him. He could feel his mind groping along the train of her words, a thread that led out of the maze. 

“Right,” he said. “So—”

“So the kind of sacrifice you’re talking about reduces you to less than human,” said Hermione. 

“You could just donate blood,” said Harry.

“Not if you’re gay,” said Draco.

“Well that’s a shit thing I forgot about,” said Harry.

Weeks later, when Draco needed to, he could not remember the kind and sensible things Hermione had said. They had worked like magic, sunk into Draco’s inflamed mind and quietened the barbed thoughts that curled there. Harry holding him, Hermione calmly and methodically talking him from the extreme to the reasonable. It had been the most wholesome gratitude he had ever felt.

The next wobble took him by surprise, and he called Blaise first.

“Sorry,” texted Blaise, “Etta’s cross with me, can’t talk.”

So Draco called Hermione, and she was just as wonderful as before. 

“I feel awful, bothering you like this,” he told her, the third or fourth time he had gone to her for help.

“I like helping you,” she said, and he believed her. 

_ One Year Later _

Draco knew the moment he opened the sitting room door that he had made a mistake.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, but Pansy interrupted.

“No, come in,” she said. Draco reluctantly obeyed. 

Blaise sat on the sofa. He turned his head away from Draco to hide his tears.

“Hello, Blaise,” said Draco. They hadn’t seen each other in a while. The fact was, Draco didn’t _need_ Blaise anymore. Hermione was a better to friend to him than Blaise had ever been. Blaise still relied on Draco, but Draco couldn’t remember the last time he had talked about anything important to Blaise. 

“Hi,” said Blaise, hoarsely. 

“Such an interesting development,” said Pansy. Her eyes shone, but Draco wasn’t sure what that meant. “It seems that Blaise is in love with me.”

“Pans,” said Blaise. “Please.”

“He’s left Etta, and everything. Because he’s so very in love with me,” said Pansy. 

This, Draco realised, was what it meant not to be young anymore. This understanding that sometimes things broke beyond repair. 

“I know I’ve been an utter louse,” said Blaise. “You don’t need to tell me. But it’s _true_ , Pans, I love you, I’ve _always_ loved you. Draco knows—”

“Don’t,” said Draco. 

“I’m sorry,” said Blaise, raising his head to look wildly first at Pansy and then Draco. “I know I’ve been cowardly. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Blaise,” said Draco, his chest turning painfully in on itself. “It’s just—you’re too late.”

Blaise blinked.

“Too… late?”

“Pansy’s in love with someone else,” said Draco. “Aren’t you, Pans?”

Pansy’s eyes were fixed on Blaise. 

“Pansy,” said Blaise, brokenly.

“I waited a long time, Blaise,” she said. 

“Oh, God,” said Blaise. He put his head to his knees and sobbed. Pansy watched him impassively for a moment, then said,

“Goodbye.” 

“Pans, please—”

Pansy left the room. She did not even look behind her as she left.

All was quiet, except for Blaise’s heaving, tearful breaths. Draco sat next to him and stroked his back in circles. He wasn’t thinking of Blaise, really. He was thinking of the words “too late”. They were the most terrible words in the world. Draco had been too late for everything, growing up—too late to realise he was on the wrong side, too late to mistrust his parents, too late to appreciate them before they were gone. He was endlessly familiar with those two words, and he hated them. 

Blaise sat up, after a while. He looked dreadful, and kept breaking away from Draco’s gaze, as if it were painful to look at Draco too long. 

“I wish,” said Blaise, “that you had been my best man.”

Draco took his hand off Blaise’s back.

“I wish that, too.”

“Etta wanted a kid, and I—” Blaise made a strange, miserable, hiccoughing sound. “I realised I didn’t want Etta’s child. I want Pansy’s. I wanted you to be godfather. I wanted Goyle to make a clumsy speech at the christening. I wanted—”

“Yeah,” said Draco, because Blaise was crying again. 

“Who is he?” asked Blaise, after a while. “The guy Pansy’s in love with.”

“His name is Patrick. Slytherin. Twelve years older,” said Draco.

“And he treats her well?” asked Blaise. 

“He worships her.”

“Oh, good, that’s good,” said Blaise. Several minutes passed in which Blaise gulped around his tears and Draco reflected that he once would have given almost anything for Blaise to stop being ashamed of him. Now, Draco felt only wistful, and he wasn’t sure what for.

“You should go home,” he said, eventually.

“Home…! I sold my flat, and I can’t go back to Etta. I can’t.”

“Well, you can’t stay here,” said Draco. “Harry will take you.”

“Harry,” said Blaise, and smiled weakly. “Yes. He will, won’t he?”

Draco stood. Blaise seemed unwilling to get to his feet, as if he knew that once he left, he might never be allowed back. But finally, he stood as well, and looked Draco in the face. 

“I hope I haven’t ruined things between us. Beyond repair, I mean,” he said. 

“Of course you haven’t,” lied Draco. Or at least, he was pretty sure he was lying.

Blaise smiled again.

“Thank you,” he said. “You’re my best friend, Draco.”

Draco didn’t know what to say. 

“I’ll see you at Harry’s,” he tried. “I’ve just got to get something first.”

“Yeah,” said Blaise. “Okay. Thank you.”

He hugged Draco, and Draco thumped him on the back. When Blaise pulled away, it looked as if he was in tears again, but Draco couldn’t be sure, because Blaise disapparated. 

Draco went to the kitchen sink and washed his hands, then walked to the nearest jewellery store and bought a ring, because he was never going to be too late for anything ever again.

———

Harry had never seen Blaise look so bad. He was tear-stained and rumpled. It seemed as if everything that made him suave, elegant Blaise Zabini had been stolen from him. 

“‘Course you can stay,” said Harry. “As long as you like.”

Blaise gave a shaky laugh.

“You’re not going to say _I told you so?”_ he asked. 

“Think I can hold back my petty remarks until you’re a bit less weepy, yeah,” said Harry.

Blaise leant his forehead against the fridge. 

“I know you don’t respect me,” he said.

“I like you more right now than I ever have before,” said Harry, passing him a cup of tea.

“That’s good,” said Blaise. “Glad I’ve improved to _somebody_.”

“Air hockey?”

Blaise shook his head.

“Think I’ll just go to bed,” he said. He had almost reached the guest bedroom door when Harry called after him:

“You’ll be all right.”

Blaise paused, not looking round. He was still for a few seconds, then pushed the door silently open and slipped inside. 

Draco arrived a little while later. He was windswept and gorgeous, a complicated addition of joy and trouble to Harry’s life. Harry was careful when he hugged him—Draco was still a bit sore from the surgery he’d had to donate a kidney. Should Harry have tried to prevent it? Hermione had justified it by saying that it was an unusually altruistic thing to do, but not so far beyond normal that they should worry. Harry knew, however, that Draco had refused to do the procedure with magic. He had insisted on muggle surgery, which was much more painful. 

“It’s not a better deed because it hurts more,” Harry had said.

“Isn’t it?” asked Draco.

“Blaise is here,” Harry told him now. “He told me about Pansy.”

Draco scanned the sitting room before settling his gaze on Harry. And then—it took Harry’s brain a moment to catch up with his vision—Draco dropped to one knee.

“I’ve decided we should get married,” he said. He was holding a velvet box. His eyes were hard and scared.

Harry put his hands around Draco’s. The velvet box was soft under his fingers.

“I thought I was supposed to propose,” he said. His voice sounded funny—too casual. His heart was in his throat, and it was all perfect, every frightening part of it.

“You were taking too long,” said Draco. He tilted his head imperiously, insecurely. “So? Will you?”

"Yes," said Harry. He grinned and pulled Draco to his feet and tried to kiss him all at once. Draco staggered against him.

“Really?” asked Draco.

“Mhm,” said Harry, kissing him again and again. “Although, if you’d just waited until your birthday—I had a whole thing planned—”

“You did?! Then I take it back—give me—”

Draco reached for the ring box. Harry shoved it down his trousers.

“As _if_ I won’t reach in there,” said Draco.

“Fuck off, you asked, we’re engaged, no take backsies!”

“ _No take backsies?_ I don’t think I _want_ to marry you, now that I know you’re twelve,” said Draco.

Harry couldn’t stop grinning.

“Oh, you do,” he said. “You put it in writing. You’ve wanted to marry me for ages, Draco Malfoy.”

Draco stopped laughing, but he was still looking at Harry with a wondrous, joyful expression, like he couldn’t quite believe his luck.

“Yes,” he said. “I have.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on instagram @let_them_eat_books :)


End file.
